Author of the bestselling novels, Angels & Demons and The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown has taken over scriptwriting duties from Oscar-nominated Eastern Promises writer Steven Knight for the upcoming adaptation of the latest Robert Langdon thriller, The Lost Symbol according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Production company, Columbia Pictures are currently developing the film version of the 2009 novel which sold more than a million copies in its first day. The Lost Symbol had an initial printing of 6.5 million, the largest in publisher, Doubleday’s history and after the phenomenal achievement of the first day, it became the fastest selling adult novel in history. It was number one on the New York Times Best Seller List for hardcover fiction for the first six weeks of its release.

The Lost Symbol features Brown’s protagonist for the third time (after Angels & Demons and The Da Vinci Code), Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon. In the story he gets mixed up with the Freemasons in Washington, D.C. and tries to uncover (yet another) conspiracy within the highest ranks.

Tom Hanks (Cast Away & You’ve Got Mail) portrayed the inquisitive academic in the first two instalments with Ron Howard (A Beautiful Mind & Frost/Nixon) at helm as director but neither have confirmed their affiliation with the future of the franchise. Especially with Hanks currently concentrating on his directorial career and Howard working on the Stephen King’s epic Dark Tower series.

2006’s The Da Vinci Code and 2009’s Angels & Demons grossed $1.24 billion at the worldwide box office for Sony Pictures. But this is the first time Brown has taken on screenwriting duties. As Akiva Goldsman wrote the former and co-wrote the latter with David Koepp.

The reception for the novel was mixed from The New York Times positive appraisal of the book as being “impossible to put down” and claimed Brown is “bringing sexy back to a genre that had been left for dead” whereas William Sutcliffe’s review in the Financial Times panned the book as “a novel that asks nothing of the reader, and gives the reader nothing back… [it] is filled with cliché, bombast, undigested research and pseudo-intellectual codswallop”.

So with a writer who is both praised and criticised, how do you think the script for the film could turn out? You’d hope the author knows his story better than anyone else, but maybe a new interpretation would be more successful?